Monday, July 8, 2013

Spring Breakers

***DISCLAIMER*** The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion, that's fine. To each their own. These reviews are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the reviews are given on a scale of 1-5. 1, of course, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay. 4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching! I could never afford to go on spring break in college but this movie made me hate the idea of spring break.

Spring Breakers – 1 out of 5How is it that Harmony Korine has, for so long, fooled people that he is a filmmaker?

**Warning: This review may contain spoilers…and was manufactured in a facility that processes nuts**

Spring Breakers is about…actually, there really isn’t much of a story going on here because it’s a Harmony Korine film…BUT, what little story there is tells the tale of four friends; Faith, Candy, Brit and Cotty (Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine) that decide they are going on spring break (Gob Blueth’s favorite holiday) and neither hell, high water or easily communicable sexually transmitted diseases are going to stop them. So, everyone but Faith rob a restaurant in order to get the money they need and then they go and party their coked-out asses off. Soon, they get in trouble with the law and are arrested. A rap star/drug dealer named Alien (James Franco) decides to use his riches to bail them out and take advantage of the four barely legal co-eds. Pretty soon Alien and the girls are accomplices in crime as they start robbing spring breakers…because apparently that makes sense in Korine’s mind.

You would think the alien head in the background is how Alien got his nickname...actually, it's from his love of anal probes.

Spring Breakers, for the sake of simplicity, is just absolutely fucking terrible—and yet, mysteriously, has been getting good reviews (But I think that has more to do with the fact some lonely critics got to see some tits in this one). However, that mystery is easily answered (although boobies is still the front runner answer, in my book, for that mystery) but I’ll get to that later. At it’s core, the film has nothing working for it and, honestly, just felt like a vessel for two former properties of Disney to try and get out of the shadow of The Mouse by running around in bikinis, flipping the bird, drinking, smoking weed and just all around acting like potential heartbreak for their parents and future stars of either a strip club or a Girls Gone Wild production. To make matter worse, the girls don’t really pull off this performance. That’s right, the actresses can’t even pull off the drunk, hedonistic spring breaker ready to be promiscuous till the sun rises and try ever drug conceivable.

A spring break film and there's no deadly super piranha? What a rip!

Yes, so the acting is awful but I will give points to Gomez for at least trying—she fails but acting wasn’t a requirement when she had “Property of Disney” branded onto her shoulder blade. Even James Franco, an actor I think is immensely talented, felt like he was giving about as much effort into his role as Harmony Korine was putting into the story and the character development—wait, that’s unfair. Franco gave more effort because, if you’ve ever seen a Harmony Korine film, you know that story and character development frighten him and he would rather just showcase uncomfortably grotesque sexual situations that feel less like commentary on underage sex and more like his fantasies being played out before him.

And all shots look like some pervert is watching the girls from afar...the insideof Korine's imagination is a dark, foreboding place.

For every second of story Korine puts into Spring Breakers, he adds exactly 15 minutes of fluff and does everything he can to avoid giving some depth to these characters and runs screaming away from adding a plot to the film by panning out pointless party sequences that drag on well past the point of being tolerable. I actually kept track and during the first half hour of the film, only 2 minutes were dedicated to setting up the girls journey to spring break and the rest of the 29 minutes were filled with them doing handstands in a hallway, sitting on a bed in their underwear, drinking, dancing, and having frat boys get all rapey-eyed in their presence. And no, my math wasn't off there. So much pointless crap happens that the film somehow magically alters time and gives itself another minute in a single half hour.

Was it strange I actually started pleading with this still to take my life and endthe pain of Spring Breakers?

All three are basically the same person.

This ratio continues throughout the entire film where Korine is more worried about making mini-music videos showing spring breakers in their element rather than focus on story, drama or plot—shit, if it wasn’t for IMDb, I would have had no idea the names of these girls because, without the character development that Korine is so afraid of, they are all basically the same person that barely have any discernible physical features to tell them apart. The character of Faith is a little different in the fact she is a religious good girl (and her name is Faith…very subtle, Korine) but because she has the potential to bring some drama and tension to the already non-existent story, she is removed very early from the film and leaves spring break behind.

What the hell? Jeff Jarrett is in this film?!? Actually, he could have severely improved the film if he smashed one person in the head with a guitar.

I’m not a fan of Harmony Korine’s films. When I watch them, I see an individual who has no idea how to write a story and doesn’t really understand the idea that it might be a good idea to actually have your audience understand your characters beyond the fact that they like to have sex with people. He always struck me as the type of filmmaker who has only learned how to successfully fool his art house audience in thinking that the poorly constructed piece of crap they just watched was more art than actual movie without it actually being art. That hasn’t changed with Spring Breakers.

A pointless inclusion of My Little Pony? Now, Korine is just daring me to hate this film.

The film is an hour and a half of nothing happening. Sure, someone is going to scream that I “didn’t get it” but watching it, I don’t think there’s anything to get. There’s no commentary on society working here (unless there’s an epidemic of bikini clad spring breakers giving up the party for guns and crime)—Korine may act like there is but all I see is a guy who has a hard-on for white trash girls with guns and bikinis—if you watch his other films, he REALLY likes dirty, greasy, Trailer Park girls.

This is the level of energy the film throws at you most of the time.

“But Ron, Harmony Korine is showing off how enough is never enough for today’s youth. The fix or party that satisfied you early won’t do so again in the future. Once you taste the sinful life, you need more drugs, more sex, more parties till the point it’s never enough. Pretty soon your shooting motherfuckers in the face to get your party fix.” That would be a good point if the film had a story showcasing this and not just a bunch of scenes of girls dancing, snorting coke and downing booze. Maybe show some consequences...or just cut to the next rap music video fodder. The least he could have done was stop with the "tell, don't show" mentality the film had. Almost never in the film do you see the story unfold but, instead, you get poorly edited together sequences with the characters rambling on about nothingness over it in a horrible attempt to get some sort of point across. No point ends up being made...unless the point is you just wasted your time and money.

Go back to Disney, Gomez...agreeing to do this film proves you're not readyto leave the Mouse's side yet.

There probably could have been some commentary to be made if Korine wasn’t too busy jacking off behind the camera as he made sure to always have Gomez’s ass in shot, Hudgens tits in frame and having his wife Rachel show off her goods for nearly 98% of the film. It got to the point it felt like Korine was making a parody of the trash he’s made in other films. But that would be too brilliant for Korine. I mean, this is the guy who thought duct taping a piece of bacon to the bathroom wall in Gummo was an artistic statement.

"Now cut to more dancing and no one will notice that I've taken almost twohours of their lives away with nothing to show for it." - Harmony Korine.

Spring Breakers is just your usual Harmony Korine film that offers up nothing of interest. There’s no story, no plot, the acting sucks, the characters are faceless nobodies wandering around aimlessly from one pointless montage to the next…if the film is anything, it’s a waste of time.

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About Me

I'm a geek, an atheist (who is also an ordained reverend), a peanut butter and jelly enthusiast, a man who shares the same name with a popular character from "Parks & Rec" and feels he can't live up to the awesomeness of the fictional character, was proudly banned from Reddit, an occasional Shakespearean performer, and a stand up comic.
Have any questions, recommendations or wanna share any theories on various movies? Email me at RevRonMovies@gmail.com and I'll talk about them on my new Q&A segment!